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The central goal of this investigation is to describe the dynamic reaction of a multicellular tumour spheroid to treatment with radiotherapy. A focus will be on the triggered dynamic cell cycle reaction in the spheroid and how it can be employed within fractionated radiation schedules.
An agent-based model for cancer cells is employed which features inherent cell cycle progression and reactions to environmental conditions. Cells are represented spatially by a weighted, dynamic and kinetic Voronoi/Delaunay model which also provides for the identification of cells in contact within the multicellular aggregate. Force-based interaction between cells will lead to rearrangement in response to proliferation and can induce cell quiescence via a mechanism of pressure-induced contact inhibition. The evolution of glucose and oxygen concentration inside the tumour spheroid is tracked in a diffusion solver in correspondence to in vitro or in vivo boundary conditions and a corresponding local nutrient uptake by single cells.
Radiation effects are implemented based on the measured single cell survival in the linear-quadratic model. The survival probability will be affected by the radiosensitivity of the current cycle phase and the local oxygen concentration. Quiescent cells will reduce the effective dose they receive as a consequence of their increased radioresistance. The radiation model includes a fast response to fatal DNA damage through cell apoptosis and a slow response via cell loss due to misrepair during the radiation-induced G2-block.
A simplified model for drug delivery in chemotherapy is implemented.
The model can describe the growth dynamics of spheroids in accordance to experimental data, including total number of cells, histological structure and cell cycle distribution. Investigations of possible mechanisms for growth saturation reveal a critical dependence of tumour growth on the shedding rate of cells from the surface.
In response to a dose of irradiation, a synchronisation of the cell cycle progression within the tumour is observed. This will lead to cyclic changes in the overall radiation sensitivity of the tumour which are quantified using an enhancement measure in comparison to the expected radiosensitivity of he tumour. A transient strong peak in radiosensitivity enhancement is observed after administration of irradiation. Mechanisms which influence the peak timing and development are systematically investigated, revealing quiescence and reactivation of cells to be a central mechanism for the enhancement.
Direct redistribution of cells due to different survival in cell cycle phases, re-activation of quiescent cells in response to radiation-induced cell death and blocking of DNA damaged cells at the G2/M checkpoint are identified as the main mechanisms which contribute to a synchronisation and determine the radiosensitivity increase. A typical time scale for the development of radiosensitivity and the relaxation of tumours to a steady-state after irradiation is identified, which is related to the typical total cell cycle time.
A range of clinical radiotherapy schedules is tested for their performance within the simulation and a systematic comparison with alternative delivery schedules is performed, in order to identify schedules which can most effectively employ the described transient enhancement effects. In response to high-dose schedules, a dissolution of the tumour spheroid into smaller aggregates can be observed which is a result of the loss of integrity in the spheroid that is associated with high cell death via apoptosis. Fractionated irradiation of spheroids with constant dose per time unit but different inter-fraction times clearly reveals optimal time-intervals for radiation, which are directly related to the enhancement response of the tumour.
In order to test the use of triggered enhancement effects in tumours, combinations of trigger- and effector doses are examined for their performance in specific treatment regimens. Furthermore, the automatic identification and triggering in response to high enhancement periods in the tumour is analysed.
While triggered schedules and automatic schedules both yield a higher treatment efficiency in comparison to conventional schedules, treatment optimisation is a revealed to be a global problem, which cannot be sufficiently solved using local optimisation only.
The spatio-temporal dynamics of hypoxia in the tumour are studied in response to irradiation. Microscopic, diffusion-induced reoxygenation dynamics are demonstrated to be on a typical time-scale which is in the order of fractionation intervals. Neoadjuvant chemotherapy with hydroxyurea can yield a drastic improvement of radiosensitivity via cell cycle synchronisation and specific toxicity against radioresistant S-phase cells.
The model makes clear predictions of radiation schedules which are especially effective as a result of triggered cell cycle-based radiosensitivity enhancement. Division of radiation into trigger and effector doses is highly effective and especially suited to be combined with adjuvant chemotherapy in order to limit regrowth of cells.
Respiration is one of the key processes of energy transduction used by the cell. It consists of two components: electron transfer and ATP production. The electron transfer chain converts the energy released from several biochemical redox reactions into an electrochemical proton gradient across membranes. This stored energy is used as the driving force for the production of ATP by the ATP synthase. The mitochondrial electron transfer chain contains four major protein complexes called complexes I-IV, with counting starting at the lower side of the redox potentials. It has been discussed for a long time how these protein complexes are organized in the membranes. Do they diffuse freely in the membrane? Alternatively, do they form a supercomplex built up of several neighboring complexes? The evidence supporting the free diffusion mode is that both electron transfer intermediates (cytochrome c and quinone) behave as “pool”. However, respiratory supercomplexes have been detected in membranes from bacteria, fungi, yeast, plant and animal during the last decade, and sometimes the respiratory complexes are only stable inside a supercomplex. Therefore, the idea of supercomplex formation has become more popular. The argument that the supercomplex arises from solubilization and is a detergent artifact could be rejected because: 1) supercomplexes can be isolated from many organisms in an active form; 2) supercomplexes have been proven to stabilize the individual complexes in some cases; 3) supercomplexes can be very stable after chromatographic isolation in some cases....
The four subunit (SU) aa3 cytochrome c oxidase (CcO) from Paracoccus denitrificans is one of the terminal enzymes of the respiratory chain. It uses electrons from cytochrome c to reduce molecular oxygen to water. Its binuclear active center, residing in SU I, contains hemeÊa3 and CuB, the latter being liganded by three histidine residues. Apart from its oxygen reductase activity, the protein possesses a peroxidase and a catalase activity.
To compare variants and the wild type (WT) protein in a more stringent way, a recombinant (rec.) WT CcO was constructed, carrying the gene for SUÊI on a low copy number plasmid. This rec. WT showed, as expected, no difference in oxygen reductase activity compared to the American Type Culture Collection (ATCC) WT CcO but surprisingly its catalase activity was increased by a factor of 20. The potential overproduction of SUÊI due to plasmid coding and the resulting deficiency in metal inserting chaperones might impair the correct insertion of hemeÊa3 and CuB because of a deficiency in metal inserting chaperones. This in turn might lead to differences in side chain orientation and to changes in the water network. However, slight changes might cause an increased accessibility of the active center for hydrogen peroxide, resulting in an increased catalase activity. The availability of chaperones and therefore the proposed structural reasons for the difference was improved by cloning the genes for the two metal inserting chaperones CtaG and Surf1c on the same plasmid together with SUÊI. This new rec. WT CcO showed in fact a reduced catalase activity. Another WT with a deletion in the chromosomal second, non expressing gene of SU I was analysed to prove plasmid coding as the reason for the difference of the ATCC WT and the rec. WT. This strain showed an increased kcat of the catalase activity as well, additionally pointing to a regulatory effect of the non expressed gene for SU I in the chromosome. To fathom the structural difference of the increased catalase activity, differential scanning calorimetry was used, but no significant difference in thermal stability between the ATCC WT CcO and the rec. WT CcO was detected. However, upon aging, the thermal stability of the rec. WT CcO declined faster than that of the ATCC WT CcO pointing to a decreased structural stability of the rec. WT CcO.
To characterize the catalase reaction, several known inhibitors were used to probe the contribution of the different metal cofactors in the catalase reaction. In addition variants in aromatic amino acids near the active center were constructed to conclude on a possible reaction mechanism of the catalase activity of CcO. These variants in combination with the wild type forms were analysed for radical signals by EPR-spectroscopy. A radical relevant for the catalase reaction of CcO was found in the F-intermediate of all variants and all wild type forms. This narrow 12 G radical signal was assigned to a porphyrine radical probably involved in the catalase reaction of CcO. Moreover, gas chromatography-mass spectrometry measurements were used to analyse isotopically labelled oxygen produced in the catalase reaction.
As a result of these experiments, a reaction cycle of the catalase activity of CcO is postulated and the structural difference between the ATCC and rec. WT CcO is outlined. The catalase activity appears to be a true catalase activity and not a "pseudocatalase" activity.
The canonical Wnt pathway, also known as Wnt/β-‐catenin pathway, comprises a network of proteins which control diverse developmental and adult processes in all metazoan organisms. The binding of canonical Wnt ligands to a cell surface receptor complex, consisting of frizzled family members and low density lipoprotein receptor-‐ related protein 5 or 6 co‐receptors, triggers a signaling cascade which results in a β-catenin-‐mediated transcriptional activation of different target genes, implicated in cellular proliferation, apoptosis, migration and differentiation. A couple of years ago, several groups including us, iden2fied transient activation of the canonical Wnt-pathway in endothelial cells (ECs) of the developing central nervous system (CNS). In this context, Wnt/β-‐catenin signaling could be demonstrated to be crucial for brain angio genesis as well as for the establishment of the blood-brain barrier (BBB) phenotype in the newly formed vessels.
Gliomas, in particular the glioblastoma (GBM), belong to the group of highly vascularized solid tumors which gain their vascularization due to an angiogenic switch occurring during tumor progression. Interestingly, nuclear localized β-‐catenin could be exclusively detected in the activated endothelium of induced rat gliomas and of human GBM, suggesting a so far unknown and not further characterized involvement of the canonical Wnt pathway in pathological angiogenesis. In order to systematically decipher the precise role of endothelial Wnt/β-‐catenin signaling in tumor angiogenesis, I established
murine GL261 glioma cell lines overexpressing either Wnt1 or Dickkopf (Dkk) 1 in a doxycycline-‐dependent manner, an activator and potent inhibitor of Wnt/β-‐catenin signaling, respectively. In subcutaneous and intracranial transplantations, tumor-derived Wnt1 reduced, while Dkk1 increased GL261 tumor growth without affecting in vitro proliferation, cell cycle or cell death of the established cell lines. Nowadays, it is well accepted that solid tumors are dependent on vascular support allowing them to grow beyond a certain size. In my work I could show that tumor-‐derived Wnt1 targets the tumor vasculature by increasing endothelial Wnt/β-‐catenin signaling, which reduced tumor vessel density and resulted in a more quiescent tumor vasculature. Furthermore, Wnt1-‐expression mediated tight association of smooth muscle cells (SMCs) and pericytes to the tumor endothelium, a phenotype which is unusual for tumor vessels and a described hallmark of tumor vessel normalization. In contrast, inhibition of endothelial Wnt/β-‐catenin signaling by Dkk1 mediated an opposing effect, characterized by endothelial hyper-proliferation and a tumor vasculature with a rough basal lamina distribution and loosely anached mural cells, indicative of a strong angiogenic activity. The described vascular effects in Wnt1-expressing GL261 tumors could be verified by subcutaneous transplantations of a rat glioma cell line constitutively expressing Wnt1. Furthermore, an applied in vivo MatrigelTM plug assay uncovered the reduction in vessel density upon Wnt1 simulation to be tumor cell independent, suggesting an EC-‐autonomous effect. This hypothesis was confirmed by subcutaneous transplantations of parental GL261 cells into mice with genetically generated endothelial β-‐catenin gain-of-function (GOF). The derived GOF tumor from this experiment comprised a quiescent and normalized tumor vasculature and phenocopied the vascular effects observed in Wnt1-expressing tumors.
Our previous work provided evidence that Wnt/β-‐catenin signaling contributes to the BBB phenotype of the developing CNS through the transcriptional regulation of the tight junction protein claudin-‐3. Furthermore, the coverage of pericytes to brain vessels has been described to correlate with BBB integrity. In agreement with these publications, vessels of intracranial Wnt1-‐expressing GL261 tumors retained or regained barrier properties, indicated by a reduced leakage of the tracer Evans blue and endogenous mouse immunoglobulin G and increased junctional localiza2on of the tight junction proteins claudin-‐3, -‐5 and zonula occludens-‐1.
Overall, we detected sustained endothelial Wnt/β-‐catenin signaling to induce a quiescent and normalized tumor vascularization. Interestingly, the Notch signaling pathway has been shown to inhibit the angiogenic tip cell and to promote the quiescent stalk cell phenotype via its ligand Delta-like ligand 4 (Dll4) and the receptors Notch1 and 4. Mechanistically, my work demonstrated for the first time that overactivation of endothelial Wnt/β-‐catenin signaling reactivated expression of Dll4 in the tumor endothelium, which could be shown in vitro to increase Notch signaling and to favor a stalk cell-like gene signature. Furthermore, we uncovered the platelet-derived growth factor subunit B (pdgm) as a novel transcriptional target of Wnt/β-catenin signaling in ECs. Hence endothelial-‐derived PDGF-‐B is known to promote the recruitment of mural cells, the upregulation of this factor might explain the increased SMC/pericyte coverage observed in the tumor vasculature upon sustained endothelial Wnt/β-‐catenin signaling which additionally might promote a cycle of vascular normalization.
Taken together, my work reveals several vascular effects, being mediated by reinforced endothelial Wnt/β-‐catenin signaling during tumor angiogenesis. While a moderate level of canonical Wnt signaling, observed in vessels of human astrocytomas and murine control tumors, is considered to be associated with tumor angiogenesis, dominant activation of this pathway in ECs is shown to limit angiogenesis and to promote a quiescent and normalized tumor vasculature with increased barrier properties. Furthermore, my work discovers pdgm as a novel target of canonical Wnt signaling in ECs.
The work presented in this dissertation therefore not only uncovers the role of endothelial Wnt/β-‐catenin signaling in tumor angiogenesis but additionally reveals this pathway to be a novel modulator in pathological vessel development which might proof to be a valuable therapeutic target for anti-angiogenic and edema glioma therapy.
Inhibitor of Apoptosis (IAP) proteins are expressed at high levels in many cancers and contribute to apoptosis resistance. Therefore, they represent promising anticancer drug targets. Here, we report that small molecule IAP inhibitors at subtoxic concentrations cooperate with monoclonal antibodies against TRAIL receptor 1 (Mapatumumab) or TRAIL receptor 2 (Lexatumumab) to induce apoptosis in neuroblastoma cells in a highly synergistic manner (combination index <0.1). Importantly, we identify RIP1 as a critical regulator of this synergism. RIP1 is required for the formation of a RIP1/FADD/caspase-8 complex that drives caspase-8 activation, cleavage of Bid into tBid, mitochondrial outer membrane permeabilization, full activation of caspase-3 and caspase-dependent apoptosis. Indeed, knockdown of RIP1 abolishes formation of the RIP1/FADD/caspase-8 complex, subsequent caspase activation and apoptosis upon treatment with IAP inhibitor and TRAIL receptor antibodies. Similarly, inhibition of RIP1 kinase activity by Necrostatin-1 inhibits IAP inhibitor- and TRAIL receptor-triggered apoptosis. By comparison, over-expression of the dominant-negative superrepressor IκBα-SR or addition of the TNFα-blocking antibody Enbrel does not inhibit IAP inhibitor- and Lexatumumab-induced apoptosis, pointing to a NF-κB- and TNFα-independent mechanism. Of note, IAP inhibitor also significantly reduces TRAIL receptor-mediated loss of cell viability of primary cultured neuroblastoma cells, underscoring the clinical relevance. By demonstrating that RIP1 plays a key role in the IAP inhibitor-mediated sensitization for Mapatumumab- or Lexatumumab-induced apoptosis, our findings provide strong rationale to develop the combination of IAP inhibitors and TRAIL receptor agonists as a new therapeutic strategy for the treatment of human cancer.
According to the standard model of particle physics, the most fundamental building blocks of the known matter are quarks and leptons, while the interactions between these fundamental objects is mediated through bosons. On one hand the leptons can exist in nature as individual particles, while on the other hand quarks appear always as bound states called hadrons. The knowledge that hadrons are built from more fundamental particles dates back to the second half of the 20th century when the work by Gell-Mann and Zweig led to the development of the quark model. The experimental proof that the hadrons are bound objects composed of more elementary particles was done through the study of deep inelastic scattering of electrons off protons. These experiments were done in a similar fashion to the studies of the atomic model led by Rutherford at the beginning of the 20th century. Further experimental analysis led to the conclusion that a large fraction of the proton momentum is not carried alone by the quarks, but by the bosons that mediate the strong interaction called gluons. The cleanest experimental signature for the existence of the gluons came from electron-positron annihilation experiments, where a quark-antiquark pair is created and one of the quarks radiates a hard gluon. Due to confinement neither the quarks nor the gluon can be observed directly, but are measured experimentally as three collimated showers of particles named jets. Since the ground breaking experiments performed at DESY, jets have provided a tool to study the properties of quarks and gluons...
The dissertation focuses on the semiconductor industry to analyze the current state of the international division of labor and its impact on the engineering labor process. Three extensive case studies on design centers of semiconductor companies located in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) are used to bridge two major gaps in the current academic debate. While the discussion on the development of the international division of labor in manufacturing has already moved towards a more sophisticated perspective that acknowledges a multi-centric structure of international division of labor, on the level of engineering work the hierarchic dichotomy of center and periphery still prevails. Analyzing both location and upgrading processes as well as the labor process the study is able to challenge this perspective. With the focus on CEE the dissertation re-focuses the analysis on a region hitherto not very prominent in research on the international division of labor and the electronics industry. The semiconductor industry with its decade long history of internationalization of both production and product development allows the analysis to focus on local upgrading and control in the labor process that are already stabilized and not anymore distorted by adjustment dynamics of initial phases of internationalization. The study is organized in two major parts representing its two levels of perspective - industry and work. First, the industry perspective with the development of global networks of production and development is used to analyze the industry organization and geographic scope of the developing international division of labor. The Global Production Network approach with its upgrading perspective is combined with research on locational decisions of R&D operations, innovation dynamics and work categories to sketch the shifts in the electronics and semiconductor industry. The study is able to show how a network based industry organization is developing, that is however increasingly driving processes of vertical integration through triangular restructuring. Based on data from field research in CEE in three extensive case studies the focus is put on the upgrading process of chip design centers in global networks of production and development. Using work categories to assess both local upgrading as well as location within global design networks the study is able to show how peripheral operation are able to develop into relatively central design centers. The most important result of the study is its account on processes of integration, through which locally integrated product development teams emerge that comprise of almost all necessary functions for product development. With this the often perpetuated idea of an increasingly modularized and internationalized engineering work is challenged. Simultaneously, a new phase in the process of internationalization is described that is characterized by increased localization, while the integration into and reliance on global networks is growing. Second, the study analyzes the engineering labor process within global networks of production and design of the electronics industry. The Labor Process Theory (especially Friedman's approach) is used to analyze the control in the engineering labor process in chip design centers in CEE. Its main argument is that the labor process in peripheral product design locations in CEE has developed considerably with regards to levels of autonomy in work tasks organization and control structure. The labor process in these formerly peripheral design centers has developed towards a project organization where managerial strategies tend towards responsible autonomy. However, a layered structure of control strategies is used by management, where forms of direct control often undergird strategies of responsible autonomy. The ability to develop an efficient labor process organization is dependent on the ability to reduce the international interface contacts towards the beginning and the end of development projects. This is directly linked to the process of local integration, or functional upgrading, through which the technical and managerial capabilities that are necessary for such a work organization are developed locally. This is the point where the international division of labor and the labor process organization need to be developed in unison through company strategy. However, local worker struggle, mostly through resistance by individual engineers, has also decisive effects on the development of the labor process. Additionally, local factors such as the labor market are central to the analysis advancing a more dialectical perspective on the relations between global and local levels of internationalization. The analysis shows how integrated forms of international division of labor are increasingly developing.
The midbrain DA system comprising dopamine (DA) neurons of the substantia nigra (SN) and the ventral tegmental area (VTA) is involved in various brain functions, including voluntary movement and the encoding and prediction of behaviorally relevant stimuli. In Parkinsonʼs disease (PD), a progressive degeneration of particularly vulnerable SN DA neurons causes a progressive DA depletion of striatal projection sites. As a consequence, motor symptoms such as tremor, hypokinesia and rigidity appear once about 50 % to 70 % of SN DA neurons have been lost. Under physiological conditions, SN DA neurons can encode behaviorally salient events and coordinated movements through tonic and phasic activity and correlated striatal DA release. Burst-activity mediates a phasic, supralinear rise of striatal DA levels and allows to activate coordinated movements via modulation of corticostriatal signals.
In the present dissertation project, pathophysiological adaptations of surviving SN DA neurons after a partial degeneration of the nigrostiatal system have been studied using a 6-hydroxydopamine mouse model of PD. Combining in vivo retrograde tracing techniques with in vitro whole-cell patch-clamp recordings, multifluorescent immunolabeling and confocal microscopy allowed an unambiguous correlation of electrophysiological phenotypes, anatomical positions and neurochemical phenotypes of recorded neurons on a single-cell level. In vitro, neuronal activity of SN DA neurons is characterized by spontaneous, slow pacemaker activity of 1 to 10 Hz and a high degree of spike-timing precision. In vitro current-clamp recordings of surviving SN DA neurons using acute brain slice preparations after a partial, PD-like degeneration of the nigrostriatal DA system showed a significant perturbation of spontaneous pacemaker activity, mirrored by a decreased spike-timing precision compared to controls. Selective pharmacology and whole-cell voltage-clamp recordings served to identify calciumactivated SK channels as molecular effectors of a perturbated pacemaker activity of surviving SN DA neurons. SK channels and have been shown to critically contribute to the spike-timing precision of SN DA neurons. Consistently, in vitro current-clamp recordings after pharmacological blockade of SK channels in vitro caused a significant decrease of spike-timing precision, occluding previously observed differences between surviving SN DA neurons and controls.In addition to in vitro patch-clamp recordings, extracellular single-unit recordings in anaesthetized animals in vivo served to study surviving SN DA neurons embedded in an intact neuronal network after a partial, PD-like degeneration of the nigrostriatal DA system. Combining in vivo single-unit recordings, juxtacellular neurobiotin labeling and multifluorescent immunohistochemistry allowed to directly correlate electrophysiological and neurochemical phenotypes as well as anatomical positions on a single-cell level. In vivo, surviving SN DA neurons showed a significant decrease of spike-timing precision as reflected by an increased irregularity and an augmented burst activity compared to controls.
The present dissertation project provided a unique combination of a neurotoxicological PD mouse model, retrograde tracing techniques and in vitro as well as in vivo electrophysiologiy, allowing to unambiguously correlate electrophysiological adaptations, projection-specific anatomical positions and neurochemical phenotypes of SN DA neurons after a partial degeneration of the nigrostriatal system. Surviving SN DA neurons exhibited a significant deficit of SK channel activity after a partial degeneration of the nigrostriatal DA system. In consequence of a diminished SK channel activity observed in vitro, surviving SN DA neurons exhibited and enhanced burst activity in vivo, providing a plausible mechanism to compensate a striatal DA depletion.
This thesis examines the literary output of German servicemen writers writing from the occupied territories of Europe in the period 1940-1944. Whereas literary-biographical studies and appraisals of the more significant individual writers have been written, and also a collective assessment of the Eastern front writers, this thesis addresses in addition the German literary responses in France and Greece, as being then theatres of particular cultural/ideological attention. Original papers of the writer Felix Hartlaub were consulted by the author at the Deutsches Literatur Archiv (DLA) at Marbach. Original imprints of the wartime works of the subject writers are referred to throughout, and citations are from these. As all the published works were written under conditions of wartime censorship and, even where unpublished, for fear of discovery written in oblique terms, the texts were here examined for subliminal authorial intention. The critical focus of the thesis is on literary quality: on aesthetic niveau, on applied literary form, and on integrity of authorial intention. The thesis sought to discover: (1) the extent of the literary output in book-length forms. (2) the auspices and conditions under which this literary output was produced. (3) the publication history and critical reception of the output. The thesis took into account, inter alia: (1) occupation policy as it pertained locally to the writers’ remit; (2) the ethical implications of this for the writers; (3) the writers’ literary stratagems for negotiating the constraints of censorship.
Time-critical applications process a continuous stream of input data and have to meet specific timing constraints. A common approach to ensure that such an application satisfies its constraints is over-provisioning: The application is deployed in a dedicated cluster environment with enough processing power to achieve the target performance for every specified data input rate. This approach comes with a drawback: At times of decreased data input rates, the cluster resources are not fully utilized. A typical use case is the HLT-Chain application that processes physics data at runtime of the ALICE experiment at CERN. From a perspective of cost and efficiency it is desirable to exploit temporarily unused cluster resources. Existing approaches aim for that goal by running additional applications. These approaches, however, a) lack in flexibility to dynamically grant the time-critical application the resources it needs, b) are insufficient for isolating the time-critical application from harmful side-effects introduced by additional applications or c) are not general because application-specific interfaces are used. In this thesis, a software framework is presented that allows to exploit unused resources in a dedicated cluster without harming a time-critical application. Additional applications are hosted in Virtual Machines (VMs) and unused cluster resources are allocated to these VMs at runtime. In order to avoid resource bottlenecks, the resource usage of VMs is dynamically modified according to the needs of the time-critical application. For this purpose, a number of previously not combined methods is used. On a global level, appropriate VM manipulations like hot migration, suspend/resume and start/stop are determined by an informed search heuristic and applied at runtime. Locally on cluster nodes, a feedback-controlled adaption of VM resource usage is carried out in a decentralized manner. The employment of this framework allows to increase a cluster’s usage by running additional applications, while at the same time preventing negative impact towards a time-critical application. This capability of the framework is shown for the HLT-Chain application: In an empirical evaluation the cluster CPU usage is increased from 49% to 79%, additional results are computed and no negative effect towards the HLT-Chain application are observed.